Zhou Libo's fiction and The Hurricane

This article is part of a recent history of modern Chinese literature edited by Gu Ming-dong and published by Routledge. The essay analyzes a milestone of Chinese Maoist Literature, The Hurricane (Bao feng zhou yu) by Zhou Libo, a recipient of the Stalin Literary Prize in 1950, with an intent to elucidate the functioning of "socialist realism" as a literary mode of representation in the PRC literary system. Paradigmatically depicting in both a realistic and exemplary way the historical events of the land reform at the dawn of the Communist takeover, the novel constitutes a model about how to turn CCP history into a revolutionary myth and a fictional narrative into an educational tool for the masses.